About Me
Blood, Sweat and Tears' first album sold an amazing ten million copies and launched three gold singles, "You've Made Me So Very Happy," "And When I Die" and "Spinning Wheel." The album won an unprecedented five Grammy awards, including album of the year and best performance by a male vocalist. Five successive gold albums and three more gold singles, "Hi De Ho," "Lucretia MacEvil" and "Go Down Gamblin'" followed, and by 1972 Blood, Sweat & Tears was at the very top of the music industry.This superb band defied all boundaries, performing with consummate artistry in front of a symphony one night, thousands of rock fans the next. BS&T played the Metropolitan Opera, the Fillmores, the Newport Jazz Festival, and Caesar's Palace - all in the same year. It was the first contemporary band to break through the iron curtain with the historic 1970 tour of Eastern Europe, and of course headlined at Woodstock, Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl . . . Blood, Sweat and Tears was the hottest concert ticket in America.From the beginning, Blood, Sweat & Tears was a strange hybrid. The Julliard graduates, with their classical training, felt the band should aspire to loftier musical goals, and Bartok and Satie became a part of the repertoire. The Berklee grads were jazz purists, and long improvised solos became a part of the show. Others were pure rockers whose experience included "The Blues Project" and Frank Zappa's "Mother's of Invention."Yet in spite of the success and accolades, the old tensions and rivalries still existed in the band. Here lies the magic - and the eventual downfall - of the early band. The Julliard types, embarrassed by the hype of pop stardom, tried to steer the band in a more classical direction, disdainful of both jazz and rock. The Berklee boys resented the structure of the classics and the simplicity of rock and pushed towards a more complex improvisational style.By the mid-70's, Blood, Sweat and Tears was submerged in a wave of its own creation. Every record company had its horn bands: Chicago, Earth Wind And Fire, Tower of Power... even the Rolling Stones carried a horn section.
The founding members of Blood, Sweat & Tears began to drift away to pursue their own musical ambitions. The classical musicians went on to film scoring and teaching fellowships. The jazz players left to play pure jazz. One by one they were replaced with an illustrious lineup of renowned musicians: Joe Henderson, Jaco Pastorius, Mike Stern, Larry Willis, Don Alias, Gregory Herbert. In concert, the band was a musical powerhouse, but inwardly it was in turmoil. The unique creative team was gone, so the band took to the road, playing 300 concerts a year through the 70's. David Clayton-Thomas left the band twice, exhausted by the brutal tour schedule and frustrated by the lack of creative time. In 1976, even Bobby Colomby, the sole remaining founding member, left to become a music executive, and David was the only one left from the glory years.
